Building construction



June 30, 1925.

J. CORMIE BUILDING CONSTRUCTION Filed Sept. 18. 1924 I/VVE/VTOR JOHN COR/141E MAM/Q ATTORNEYS place of Patented June 30, i912? P ATE"? rrrca.

Jenn coaiarn, or I raanron,

ASSIGNOR TO TITLE AGASOTEIYEILL-BOARD cor-arena, or enames, JERSEY, A conrnaairlonor NEW *JEasEY.

"surname cons raucrron.

A plication filed September 18, 1am. Serial as. 738388.

T 0 all 10710421, it may concern;

Be it known thatl, Jenn Connie, a subject of the King o fGreat Britain, and resident of Trenton, countyof iMercer, State of New Jersey, have invented certain new and u se'ful Improvements in Building Constructions, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to building construe tion and more particularly to that class of construction whichinvolvesthe use of pulp boards, commonly known as wall boards, in

the more commonly 'usedwall coverings such as shingles, clapboards'and other sidings. J Ordinary piilp'board, which is not completely waterproof, will expand and con tract under the influence of atmospheric conditions and is therefore not suitable for general use in the form of boards torwall coverings. The tendency to expand under the influence of moisture, when resisted by 'ifastening devices such as nails, will cause very unsightly buckling even when the board is used as aninterior wall covering. The object of theinvention is to provide a simple and novel arrangement whereby the warping and distortion orsuch wall boards may be directed in such a manner that unsightly buckling is prevented, the special advantageotthis arrangement beingthat ite'nables pulp board to be used 'as anexterior covering for buildings. The pulp board to which I have reieren ie,'may be of'any type and may be either laminated or homogeneous. My invention is of particular advan tage in connection with a semi-flexible board made, for instance, by running paper pulp, wood pulp or the like'into a mold and, by means of'pressure, removing the majority of the water (see for instance United States Letters Patent Natl 71,936, dated October 4, 1910, and No. 1,272,566 dated July 16, 1918) and subsequently drying out'the remainder of the water by the application of heat. However, pulp board to which my invention relates does not include, on the one hand, pulp board which has been so thor-' oughly waterproofed that it will not buckle at all when exposed to the atmosphere, or, on the other hand, a board'which is completely flexible, such as roofing paper, which will not retain any shape given to it unless positively held therein.

Broadly speaking, my invention comprises attaching the board by suitably spaced fastening means in one direction, preferably that 01 its length, and providing for an artificially created buckling in the other direction, oreiterably that of its'width. Any tendency to buckle in the latter direction will'result, substantially, in'no more than ail-increase of the buckling'already artificially present, while any tendency to buckle in the other direction is either resisted to a very large degree, or expends itself in emphasizingthe artificial buckling. I am not able to explain this phenomenon. It may be due to the fact that the board is bent into the form of a double arch and thus resists lengthwise buckling or', itmay be that the board finds its lines of least resistance to bucklingin the other direction.

Inthe accompanying drawings, which illustrate an example of the invention without defining its limits, Fig. 1 is a front elevation of a portion of a building exterior coveied with pulp wallboard in accordance with my invention; Fig. 2' is a section on the line 22 of Fig. 1; Fig. 3is a-rear elevation of the structi'u'e'shown' in Fig. l, and Fig. 4: is a fragmentary section, similar to Fig. 2, on an enlargedscale.

vAs shown in the drawings, lOindicates wallboard or siding made of the pulp board in question. It may be cut to any suitable size and shape depending upon the use to which it is to be put and, in the illustrated example, is made in'strips approximately 12 inches wide by several feet in length. The wallboards arev preferably made of uniform thickness as shown in Fig. 2. They are nailed or otherwise fastened in overlapping relation to parallel supporting strips or furring laths 11, in the usual manner, but it will be noted that these strips, are of rectangular cross-section and that the vertical faces thereof are in alignment. The lowermost strip or lath 12 preferably projects outwardly beyond the adjacent strip 11 at a distance equal to the thickness of aboard 10; that is, said'strip l2has a suriace located forwardly of the vertical faces of the strips 11 to a predetermined extent. As these wallboards possess a certain degree of flexibility they will, when secured in the manner shown, be caused to assume a lateral curvature, such as indicated approximately by the full line A in Fig. l. lVhen the board buckles its curvature will be exag gerated as indicated by the dotted lines B iii Fig. 4, that is to say, in a predetermined direction least liable to cause an unsightly result.

If the nails or other fastening means, by means of which the wallboard is attached to the furring strips, are sufficiently near together, there will be no substantial degree of distortion of the board in the lengthwise direction even though, without the presence of the artificially created buckling along line A, buckling in the-direction of the length of the board would be so unsightly as to make it practically impossible to use the board as a sheathing for a wall. No fastening means are to be provided crosswise of the board as this would tend to impair, to a certain degree, the increase of buckling in the direction of the artificially created buckling: i

The best method of determining the dislance to which the nails, or other fastening means, should be applied, is by experiment. Other things being equal, the more closely the fastening means are spaced, the more nearly buckling in the lengthwise direction will be prevented. For instance, with a partially waterproof board made as above particularly described, having a width of 12 inches and a thickness of three-eighths of an inch, the nails should be spaced not-further than ten inches apart, but are preferably spaced from four inches to six inches apart. The thicker or more dense or more waterproof the board, the further apart the nails may be spaced. I do not wish it to be understood that absolutely no buckling would take place in the lengthwise direction but that such buckling as may take place is so slight that it will not interfere with the practical use of the board in building construction. It. will be found, however, that a board fastened by nails spaced as above stated will buckle ina very short time so as to be unsightly and practically unusable if the artificially created widthwise buckling is not present. 4 r

lVhile I prefer to use a board, the larger surfaces of which lie in parallel planes, and

then to bend the same into a double curve as I apply it to the supporting strips, I may so mold or press my board as to give it an initial double curvature, for instance. one similar to that indicated by the lineA in Fig. 4:.

Various changes in the specific form shown anddescribed may be made within the scope of the claims without departing from the spirit of my invention. For instance, the outer surfaces of the furring laths need not be in exactly the same plane, as the double curve of the boards may be brought about when the outer faces of such laths are slightly offset. It is obvious that for. the purposes of this invention the parallel supporting strips need not consist of separate pieces, but that a number of them may form part of an integral structure, which would therefore be the mechanical equivalent thereof; thus, the boards may be applied over solid sheathing, instead of over furring laths, with the same result, especially if one lath is nailed to the bottom of the sheathing to give the proper pitch to the lowermost board.

I claim:

1. In building construction the combination of a supporting structure including a plurality of parallel supports, having surfaces located in substantially the same plane and a plurality of wallboards, said wallboards each having one longitudinal edge secured to one of said surfaces and the other edge overlapping and secured to the contiguous edge of an adjacent wallboard, each wallboard, after it is thus secured, havinga double lateral curvature therein.

2. Inbuilding construction the combinationof a supporting structure, including a plurality of parallel supports having surfaces located in substantially the same plane, and a plurality of wallboards whose larger surfaces define parallel planes, said wallboards each having one longitudinal edge secured to one of said surfaces and the other edge overlapping and secured to the contiguous edge of an adjacent wallboard, whereby each of said boards will be given a double lateral curvaturebetween said surfaces.

3. In building construction the combina- .tion of a supporting structure including a plurality of parallel supports, having surfaces located in substantially the same plane, a plurality of wallboards and an ad ditional strip having a face located for; wardly of said other surfaces at a distance approximately equal to the thickness of a wallboard, said wallboards each having one longitudinal edge secured to one of said surfaces and the other edge overlapping and secured to the contiguous edge of an adjacent wallboard, each wallboard after it is thus secured having a double lateral curvature therein.

JOHN COR-M115. 

